Opinion
Mint Quick Edit | Do bells and whistles work in telecom?
Summary
- Private telecom players saw subscribers leave after they hiked tariffs in July, with Reliance Jio losing the most, but No. 2 Airtel showed a surprise gain in October. A case of less price sensitive users? Or special offers dangled by Airtel?
Private telecom operators that raised tariffs in July have been losing subscribers ever since. But Bharti Airtel pulled off a surprise gain in October, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
The mobile service provider added 1.92 million users to reach a subscriber base of 385.4 million, while market leader Reliance Jio lost 3.76 million to reach 460 million and Vodafone Idea (VI) had 1.97 million drop-offs, leaving it with 210.5 million users.
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Counting the previous three months’ changes as well, Jio lost 16.5 million, Airtel 3.6 million and VI 6.8 million. State-run BSNL enrolled 6.8 million users over these four months, though its October-end base was only 92.4 million.
What explains Airtel’s relative resilience? Its usage has always had a more premium profile than Jio’s, a later entrant that played price warrior, while VI has struggled ever since a court ruling on its dues to the Centre went against it.
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Airtel’s users are perhaps less price sensitive than Jio’s. But, to give credit where its due, its tactical efforts to retain subscribers by dangling shiny special offers may have worked too.
Bells and whistles work, apparently, and not just as Christmas tree adornments.
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